808-756-0221Backup appliances are HOT right now with organizations of all sizes loving the flexibility and ease with which these appliances enable them to get back up and running in their environment. But as DCIG’s research into backup appliances uncovers, they are not all created equal with features like deduplication, SSD support and application integration emerging as key differentiators. It is these features and more that Eversync bundles in its new, recently announced line of data protection appliances.
Data protection appliance provider Eversync has announced the release of its Eversync OS v5 and two new lines of hardware appliances running the new OS. The new release focuses on usability and enhancing Eversync’s virtualization and replication features as well as adding inline block level deduplication. Along with the new features Eversync is creating two new distinct product lines targeted at small to mid-sized enterprises.
The first product line, the “backup line” consists of its new Eversync 1000 and 2000 models that are focused on companies looking primarily for entry-level backup. While considered entry level, both the 1000 and 2000 models support major enterprise features we expect to see in enterprise backup appliances with support for virtualization.
For instance, these models support simultaneous backups and restores of physical and virtual machines as well as bare metal, application level and file level restores. Eversync’s tight integration with both VMware and Hyper-V enables support for “synthetic” full backups, eliminating the need for costly scheduled full backups.
However it is its upper-end “data protection” product line where Eversync has focused its efforts in its v5 release. The new Eversync 1500, 2500, 4500 and 9500 models include numerous hardware upgrades along with numerous features geared towards the needs of midsize enterprise market. Eversync is also promising a software virtual appliance version of its data protection software for customers who want to implement its solution on existing server and storage in VMware environments.
Included on all of these models is Eversync’s new inline block deduplication feature. This ensures backup data is deduplicated immediately, reducing by up to 20x the amount of disk space needed to store backups, plus it positions organizations to more effectively use Eversync’s replication functionality. Organizations that will particularly benefit are those that are trying to maximize available network bandwidth and have to move large amounts of data in limited amounts of time.
Delivering on these advanced features with enterprise class performance required Eversync to beef up the hardware found on its appliances. These new appliances include significantly more memory than its prior product line and incorporate SSD technology to store the metadata for deduplication.
This is done for two reasons. First, inline deduplication occurs more quickly as all of the metadata may be read and written than when stored on HDDs. The second is to enable faster recoveries when they occur, because of the higher speed of accessing the metadata stored on SSDs.
The performance improvements resulting from the above changes result in increases in data inflows and outflows. To accommodate this increase, Eversync has added a number of desirable network interface features that enable matching network performance.
First, organizations still using 1 Gb networks may use Eversync’s new interface bonding option to improve network bandwidth on its existing 1 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. Using this feature, they can bond multiple 1 Gb Ethernet ports, up to six on the largest models, to scale network bandwidth.
Alternatively, those organizations already using 10 Gb Ethernet networks may optionally choose to install up to two (2) 10 Gb Ethernet ports on an Eversync appliance to get higher throughput. The net result of these changes is a performance increase of up to 5x over its previous line of appliances with up to 1TB/hr sustained backup and restore speeds.
Eversync has also increased the depth and range of its enterprise capabilities for replication with a new “Active/Active” replication option that allows two sites to act as disaster recovery sites for each other. Each appliance in this configuration acts as two virtual appliances. In this configuration, the administrator assigns disk capacity to the virtual appliance which is split in functionality so that it may act as both a primary backup appliance and as a DR copy for another remote appliance.
Eversync now also supports selective replication for instances where not all backup data needs to be replicated so the disaster recovery appliance may now be smaller than the primary site appliance. Extensions to the management interface allow administrators to manage both the primary site appliance and the DR site appliance from the same interface.
Expanded support for Exchange is also found in Eversync’s v5 release. Support for larger Exchange environments that have multiple data stores, multiple Exchange servers and installations with hundreds to thousands of mailboxes may now be accomplished with Eversync v5.
Granular restore capabilities for Exchange and SQL Server were enhanced to enable administrators to instantly search and restore individual emails in Exchange as well as provide granular restores of database objects. This capability is available for applications running on both virtual machines and physical servers.
Finally, giving users remote access to its product was clearly high on Eversync’s priority list as evidenced by the new mobile app that is now available for both iOS and Android based devices. In this first release, the Eversync mobile app primarily enables administrators to monitor the environment that has the same look and feel as its existing web-based management interface.
Going forward, Eversync expects to introduce additional management functionality as it has completely revamped its API in anticipation of introducing this functionality. The Eversync mobile manager is available in the Apple App store, the Amazon Appstore for Android, and the Google Play Store.
The new Eversync data protection appliances represent a major milestone release for Eversync at a time when the desire for backup appliances among midsize organizations is hotter than ever. This new product suite with its inline block-level deduplication, hardware enhancements and new mobile app are making turn-key backup and recovery a reality in a midsize enterprise backup space that is becoming more demanding and bearing a greater resemblance to enterprise shops by the day. By splitting its suite of products into entry-level and mid-market data protection tiers they are ready to keep its existing customer base satisfied while giving larger, more complex user environments the breadth of features they want.